Hal Adonis, president/chairman of the board for USA Boxing, the sport's national governing body, was in San Antonio recently for the South Texas LBC Championships. He sat down with Express-News staff writer John Whisler to discuss the state of the Olympic program:

The United States has won just two gold medals in boxing in the past three Olympics combined and only a bronze in 2008. How can this decline be reversed? ﻿﻿

First of all, we have boxers who are doing well nationally but need more international experience. Also, many of our boxers are still using a pro style. We have to eliminate that. Our boxers like to fight on the inside where their punches can't be seen as well by the judges. They need to be trained to fight on the outside, in the center of the ring. They need to throw more jabs and punches in bunches. But in order to do that, we need to retrain our coaches, especially on the local levels.

How do you plan to accomplish that?

Instead of having the local coaches come to the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colo., we're starting to set up clinics in cities across the country. I'd like to have a clinic here in May where we bring in our Olympic coach. If you walk into some gyms today, you see guys going to war. Nobody is stopping to correct their mistakes. Football has controlled scrimmages. We have to do something similar to that in our gyms.

Joe Zanders is the new U.S. Olympic boxing coach for the 2012 Games. Why is he the right man for the job?

I've known Coach Zanders for 25 years, competed against him at the national level as a coach. He's a very well-educated man. He's got a master's degree. He is one of the top coaches in the country. He's already been an assistant Olympic coach, in 2004. Besides his knowledge of the sport, he's a great communicator, and he relates extremely well with the athletes.

Freddie Roach, the trainer for Manny Pacquiao, was brought in to work with your amateur boxers. What kind of an impact do you think he'll have?

Freddie's fighters are pros, but he knows the amateur game very well. He was an amateur champion. The first thing he brings to the table is respect. When he walks in the gym, people take notice. He's also easy to work with and very humble. He complements Coach Zanders very well.

Do you think we'll see the fruits of these efforts at the 2012 London Games?

I can't predict how many medals our boxers will win, but we're trying our very best to work with our elite coaches now to do better. I think we might surprise a lot of people. The USOC would like us to get at least four medals. Of course, we want more.